What?! I Became the Zombie Beauty in the Villain’s Arms – CH9

Chapter 9: Deep Desire

The warm water cascaded over Pei Xiqing’s pale skin, thoroughly soaking her dark hair before trailing down the delicate curve of her neck. The hotel bathroom was small, the air thick with steam that partially obscured her naked figure in the frosted mirror.

She washed with a frantic, anxious energy, terrified that Duan Xiaolin might return to the room at any moment. She scrubbed her hair and skin as quickly as humanly possible, her movements laced with a deep, lingering trepidation.

I am so dirty.

Over the past few days, she had been covered in so much grime and dried mutant blood that she felt completely restless, as if invisible insects were constantly crawling beneath her skin.

If she hadn’t been terrified of abruptly mutating into a zombie, she would never have bothered him with this. It genuinely felt inappropriate to ask for a hot shower… after all, in the apocalypse, everyone was accustomed to crawling through the dirt and fighting rotting corpses. Simply staying alive was an agonizing struggle; who actually cared about personal hygiene?

After an eleven-minute military-speed shower, Pei Xiqing poked her head out of the bathroom door, wrapped tightly in a thick white bathrobe.

He’s still not back.

The hotel room was entirely empty.

She let out a long sigh of relief and immediately set about washing her clothes in the sink.

She wasn’t entirely sure if they would dry overnight. However, while wandering the streets earlier that afternoon, she had managed to scavenge some relatively clean undergarments. Those were fine for now. Her immediate priority was scrubbing her outerwear—the coat and pants that were soaked in zombie blood, caked with dirt, and stained with various unidentifiable, foul-smelling liquids.

After aggressively hand-washing her outerwear, she slipped into the scavenged clothes: a thin, grey oversized sweater and a pair of shorts that barely covered her thighs. She dragged a wooden chair to the window, intending to hang the wet clothes to dry.

Unlike the luxury hotels of her past life, this room didn’t have a balcony. There was only a rusted, external drying rack bolted directly beneath the window frame. If she wanted to hang anything, she had to physically climb onto the windowsill and lean out.

She was balancing precariously on the ledge, stretching her arms as far as they would go to reach the rack, when the heavy door behind her suddenly clicked open.

The tall man stepped into the room, holding a bundle in his hand. When he looked up, he was immediately greeted by the sight of a thinly dressed woman with a pair of incredibly well-proportioned, pale legs standing on the edge of the windowsill.

Having finally washed away the apocalyptic grime, her true features were perfectly revealed. The hot water had left her cheeks flushed with a natural, rosy warmth, giving her an aura of devastating, pure beauty. Her wet hair was tucked behind her ears, still dripping. A single bead of water slid smoothly down her delicate neck, seeping into the collar of the thin grey sweater and turning the fabric translucent.

His dark eyes remained entirely quiet. “What are you doing?”

Pei Xiqing’s ears burned bright red with embarrassment. “I… I wanted to hang up my clothes. I just washed them.”

Duan Xiaolin calmly closed the door and walked over to the chair. “Give them to me.”

He was easily a full head taller than her. Pei Xiqing, still standing on the chair, was now positioned slightly above him. She nervously lowered her gaze. “Thank you.”

As she spoke, she attempted to step backward off the windowsill. However, decades of apocalyptic wind and sand had severely eroded the hotel’s masonry. The stone beneath her foot suddenly crumbled.

With a sharp gasp, she lost her balance, toppling backward off the ledge.

She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for a painful collision with the floor. But instead of hitting the hard tiles, a powerful arm hooked firmly around her waist, catching her mid-air and effortlessly lifting her down from the window.

The area where his arm wrapped around her waist was incredibly sensitive. Even through the thin fabric of her sweater, she could distinctly feel the terrifying, unyielding density of his physique.

He was wearing a flawlessly tailored dress shirt, but the sheer, hard muscle shifting beneath it—and beneath his tailored trousers—was impossible to ignore.

As he set her down, his thin lips lightly brushed past the edge of her brow. His breath carried the crisp, cold scent of pine, deeply layered with the dark aroma of tobacco. Pei Xiqing only caught a single breath of it, but it was enough to make her heart race violently against her ribs. She subconsciously shrank back, clutching her chest.

Duan Xiaolin set her down on the edge of the bed, his heavy eyelids drooping slightly as he looked at her. “Anything else?”

“J-Just those two.”

Without a word, he took the wet clothes from her hands. Instead of hanging them outside, he casually draped them over a wooden rack near the ceiling vent.

“The wind is going to pick up significantly tonight,” he explained, his tone even. “Within an hour, there will be a severe sandstorm. If you actually want clean clothes to wear tomorrow, don’t hang them outside.”

“…I completely forgot about the sandstorm.”

Great. Now my clothes definitely won’t dry in time.

What she was going to wear tomorrow was now a critical problem.

She was currently wearing the only dry clothes she had left, and the thin fabric offered absolutely zero protection against the bitter apocalyptic cold. If she stepped outside like this tomorrow, she would freeze to death before noon.

As if reading her mind, Duan Xiaolin wordlessly handed her the bundle he had brought in.

Pei Xiqing took it, confused. Unfolding the fabric, she realized it was a brand-new, heavy-duty tactical windbreaker and a matching set of insulated thermal wear.

It was a sleek, black-and-white design. It looked incredibly warm.

Her eyes widened, and she looked up at him in surprise. “Is this for me? Where did you get this?”

“The other survivor team,” Duan Xiaolin replied. He casually unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt, removed his heavy mechanical watch, and set it on the nightstand. His tone was distant and entirely devoid of warmth. “They gave it to me.”

“Why would they just give you brand-new gear?” she asked suspiciously. “They didn’t do this just to bribe you into taking them to the base, did they?”

He unfastened the top buttons of his shirt. “They did. In the wasteland, information and protection require an exchange of goods.”

“Then I don’t want it.” Pei Xiqing immediately pushed the clothes back toward him. “I can’t let them use this to manipulate you or hold leverage over you.”

At worst, she would just suffer and wear her damp clothes tomorrow. She had no idea what that rogue team was truly capable of. With Ling Lang and the others gone, she was terrified that the scavengers would use their sheer numbers to ambush Duan Xiaolin once they realized he was alone.

In the apocalypse, absolutely no one could be trusted. There was zero reason for Duan Xiaolin to owe a treacherous scavenger faction a favor just for a jacket.

“Brother Duan, please give this back to them,” she insisted firmly.

He raised his heavy eyelids, his dark gaze locking onto her through the gold frames of his glasses.

Pei Xiqing blinked nervously under his scrutiny. “It’s just… it’s better if we don’t get too entangled with them before Ling Lang gets back.”

“Why are you waiting for him?” he asked.

“…Because he said he’d be back?”

In the dim light of the hotel room, Duan Xiaolin’s sharp features seemed veiled by an impenetrable layer of frost. He stood perfectly still, staring down at the girl for a long, suffocating moment. “Put it on. This jacket wasn’t the condition for the exchange.”

Information regarding the central base cannot be bought with a single piece of clothing.

Pei Xiqing obediently clutched the heavy windbreaker. She was still wearing the thin, loose-fitting grey sweater. As she shifted, the oversized collar slipped off her shoulder, revealing the delicate slope of her collarbone and a small, striking mole resting just beneath it. Her flushed cheeks looked incredibly soft and fragile. She leaned in slightly, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Brother Duan… are you absolutely sure taking this won’t cause trouble for you?”

There was an innate, undeniable innocence to her that violently clashed with the brutal reality of the apocalypse around them.

Her large eyes were brimming with genuine caution and worry.

He couldn’t tell if she was truly terrified of the scavengers, or if she only acted this delicate when she was standing in front of him.

Duan Xiaolin suddenly felt a violent, overwhelming urge to smoke. The close proximity to her made the craving burn stronger than it ever had before.

But perhaps the desire gnawing at his self-control was far deeper than a simple need for nicotine.

He half-closed his eyes, staring at her through the dim, amber lighting of the room. “No.”

The intensity in his gaze was dangerous—the kind of look that made a person’s survival instincts scream. Yet, Duan Xiaolin’s outward demeanor and immaculate appearance were more upright and disciplined than the most refined gentleman. Given the way he acted, Pei Xiqing was firmly convinced that he had to be one of the story’s righteous, lawful-good characters.

She honestly couldn’t imagine there being any darker meaning hidden behind his stare.

Only after receiving his definitive reassurance did she finally relax and slip the heavy tactical jacket over her shoulders. Rubbing her still-cold knees, she offered a small smile. “How about I go downstairs and help you carry up the rest of the supplies?”

Duan Xiaolin unbuttoned the rest of his shirt, exposing the terrifyingly defined, heavily scarred musculature of his chest. He turned his back to her and walked toward the bathroom. “There are two crates of rations in the trunk. Take whatever you want to eat. And take the bed tonight. Don’t worry about me.”

“Understood.”

The sound of the shower turning on echoed from the bathroom.

Pei Xiqing touched her cheeks; they felt burning hot.

She had eaten the roasted rabbit hours ago, and her stomach was already beginning to rumble again.

Since the hotel was surrounded by the ruins of larger buildings, it effectively blocked the worst of the howling wind and sand. The temperature inside the garage wouldn’t be nearly as freezing as out in the open Gobi. She zipped the heavy coat all the way up and pulled on the matching tactical pants, ensuring every single inch of her skin was completely covered. She absolutely could not let anyone see the pale green infection creeping up her arms.

While taking her shower, she had meticulously inspected the infection. It had indeed faded significantly, but the faint, sickly webbing was still visible under the bathroom lights. As long as no one aggressively yanked her collar down or rolled up her sleeves, she looked completely human.

Still, following Duan Xiaolin and Ling Lang’s elite squad made her feel incredibly insecure and anxious.

If she slipped up, or if the virus suddenly surged and fully consumed her, she would have absolutely nowhere to run. They would execute her on the spot.

She couldn’t help but recall the horrifying scene from earlier that afternoon—when Duan Xiaolin had blown the scavenger Vice-Captain’s head off without a single microsecond of hesitation.

If I lose my mind… that’s exactly what he’ll do to me.

Just thinking about the deafening gunshot made her entire body tremble.

But right now, she had nowhere else to go. If she didn’t fully mutate, she still needed food, water, clothing, and shelter to survive.

The protagonists had already left her to die, and if she tried to approach the central base alone, the automated defense grid would likely vaporize her before she even reached the gates.

I guess I’ll just take it one day at a time.

She sighed, resigning herself to her fate. She was technically a zombie anyway; every extra day she survived in this novel felt like stolen time. If she somehow managed to live until the story’s conclusion, great. If not, whatever. The plot of this overpowered apocalypse novel wasn’t that deep anyway.

However, there was one deeply unsettling anomaly about her mutation that she still couldn’t figure out.

Lost in thought, Pei Xiqing quietly made her way down the stairwell to the ground floor.

Just as she reached the lobby, she noticed the flickering lights of the garage. Assuming it was just the scavengers organizing their loot, she casually glanced over—only to freeze in her tracks.

Several men from the rogue team were surrounding the black G-Class. They were holding heavy crowbars, lockpicks, and blowtorches, actively preparing to force the armored doors open and raid the vehicle.

“Hey! What the hell are you doing?!” she shouted, stepping out of the shadows.

The men paused and turned around. They recognized her immediately. Having just stepped out of the shower, her hair was still slightly damp, and her face was scrubbed clean of the wasteland dirt. Seeing her like this, the men didn’t look even remotely guilty about being caught attempting grand theft auto. Instead, their eyes darkened with undisguised lust.

The leader of the group smirked, casually tossing his crowbar aside. “Well, well. Your man doesn’t look like much, does he? It’s been less than half an hour, and he’s already done with you?”

He took a slow, predatory step toward her, his eyes raking over her body. “Why don’t you ditch that guy and join our squad? Most of us are high-tier ability users. Our Captain even controls lightning. Do you have any idea how much power that is in a world like this?”